ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Two-State Delusion The Biden administration is leading a push to recognize a Palestinian state that will be a danger to the security of Israel BY Elliott Abrams

Posted By on February 2nd, 2024

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/two-state-delusion

Everyone knows what to do about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Arrange the “two-state solution.” That has been a commonplace for decades, going back to the Oslo Accords, all the international conferences, the “Roadmap,” and the efforts by a series of American presidents and their staffs of ardent peace processors.

In the West, the call for a “two-state solution” is mostly a magical incantation these days. Diplomats and politicians want the Gaza war to stop. They want a way out that seems fair and just to voters and makes for good speeches. But they are not even beginning to grapple with the issues that negotiating a “two-state solution” raises, and they are not seriously asking what kind of state “Palestine” would be. Instead they simply imagine a peaceful, well-ordered place called “Palestine” and assure everyone that it is just around the corner. By doing so they avoid asking the most important question: Would not an autocratic, revanchist Palestinian state be a threat to peace?

No matter: The belief in the “two-state solution” is as fervent today as ever. The German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said it’s the “only solution” and Britain’s defense minister chimed in that “I don’t think we get to a solution unless we have a two-state solution.” Not to be outdone, U.N. Secretary General Guterres said, “The refusal to accept the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, and the denial of the right to statehood for the Palestinian people, are unacceptable.” The EU’s Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said recently, “I don’t think we should talk about the Middle East peace process anymore. We should start talking specifically about the two-state-solution implementation process.” What if Israel does not agree, and views a Palestinian state as an unacceptable security threat? Borrell’s answer was that “One thing is clear—Israel cannot have the veto right to the self-determination of the Palestinian people. The United Nations recognizes and has recognized many times the self-determination right of the Palestinian people. Nobody can veto it.”

In the United States, 49 Senate Democrats (out of 51) just joined to support a resolution that, according to Sen. Brian Schatz, is “a message to the world that the only path forward is a two-state solution.” Biden administration officials have been a bit more circumspect in public. At the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos in January, Secretary of State Blinken told his interviewer, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, that regional integration “has to include a pathway to a Palestinian state.” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called for “a two-state solution with Israel’s security guaranteed.” And President Biden meandered around an important security point: “there are a number of types of two-state solutions. There’s a number of countries that are members of the U.N. that … don’t have their own military; a number of states that have limitations, and so I think there’s ways in which this can work.”

What if ‘what the Palestinian people want’ is mostly to destroy Israel?

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Biden Is a Prisoner of the Progressives’ War on Israel Andrew McCarthy

Posted By on February 2nd, 2024

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/biden-is-a-prisoner-of-the-progressives-war-on-israel/

In a pathetic sop to his political base in an election year when his approval ratings are dismal, President Biden slapped sanctions on dozens of Israeli settlers in Judea and Samaria (a.k.a. the West Bank), blocking travel and financial transactions.

As even the Biden fans and Palestinian sympathizers at the New York Times acknowledge, the move is “a gesture” to appeal to “American voters who are furious with the president’s backing of Israel’s war in Gaza.” (The Times ends the sentence there; I would have continued it with “that erupted when Iran-backed Hamas murdered over 1,100 Israelis, raping, wounding, and/or taking hostage hundreds of others in its October 7 sneak attack.”)

The sanctions will have negligible effect. Israel is currently at war on several fronts, including the West Bank, where it eliminated three Hamas terrorists in a raid on a Palestinian hospital on Tuesday. The capacity of a relative handful of people to engage in U.S. travel or finance is of little moment in the scheme of things.

Whether the president’s ploy will have the desired political effect of mollifying Biden’s base is similarly doubtful. The fringe to whom Biden is virtue-signaling (yes, this is their idea of virtue) will not be satisfied with a gesture; they want real action, you know, from the river to the sea. More importantly, they are mostly younger people who are not reliable voters; older voters, whom Biden will need in November, tend to support Israel.

How characteristic of Biden to cut off lawful visas for Israelis while he lawlessly issues hundreds of thousands of faux Biden visas to illegal aliens to usher them into the United States — heedless of the damage it is doing to the education, health-care, law-enforcement, and social-services budgets of American cities and states.

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Choose your future: Trump or Obama? By Ned Cosby

Posted By on February 2nd, 2024

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/02/choose_your_future_trump_or_obama.html

Will it be former president Trump versus President Biden in 2024? Or will it be former First Lady Michelle Obama versus former President Trump? These questions and the instability of our times make for much handwringing and prayer here in the early days of 2024.

If you take a deep breath and break this down, it gets simpler. The election of 2024 sets Trump’s “Make America Great Again” against Obama’s “Transform America” mantra. If you want it down to bare bones, the election of 2024 pits Obama against Trump.

Some of you might doubt me, citing the fact that Obama has already served eight years as POTUS and that the Constitution forbids him from a Putin-like endless rule. I might be tempted ask you what other former President moved less than two miles from the White House to continue forcibly engraving his ego on American politics?

Obama, like Putin, does not want to leave the stage. He is willing, however, to let surrogates or the “right people” do his bidding as long as he retains control.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Biden Must Abandon Plans to Withdraw US forces from Syria and Iraq by Con Coughlin

Posted By on February 2nd, 2024

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20361/us-withdrawal-syria-iraq

[T]he priority now for the White House must be to strengthen its military presence in the region, not reduce it. Worse, the vacuum created by any withdrawal by US troops is sure to be filled by adversaries of America and the free world.

Any US withdrawal is sure to be seen, especially after the US surrender in Afghanistan, as America running away — again.

[I]t would be folly of the highest order for the Biden administration even to contemplate a reduction of US forces in the region. With Iran clearly intent on pursuing its proxy war against the US and its allies, the US needs to demonstrate its determination to prevent Tehran from expanding its malign influence in the Middle East, rather than capitulating in the face of Iranian violence.

With Iran seemingly intent on intensifying its confrontation with the US, it is hard to imagine a worse time for the Biden administration even to consider withdrawing any of the US forces currently based in the Middle East.

Prior to the latest Iranian-sponsored attack on US forces based in Jordan, in which three serving American service personnel were killed and another 34 were injured, the White House had already opened negotiations with the Iraqi government on the future of US and other allied troops based in the country.

A statement issued by the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, after the first round of talks opened in Baghdad at the weekend, declared that the talks were aimed at ending the US-led coalition in Iraq.

There are currently an estimated 2,500 US troops based in Iraq. The US deployment in the country was originally part of the coalition formed in 2014 to fight Islamic State (IS). The force has continued to operate in Iraq despite the fact that the so-called IS caliphate established in the Syrian city of Raqqa has been destroyed.

FOREIGN POLICY, ISRAEL Comments turned off

The Cynical ‘Biden Doctrine’ Middle East Peace Plan is Dead on Arrival All Americans should speak out against the so-called Biden Doctrine as a perverse politicization of American foreign policy that could significantly harm a close U.S. ally. By Fred Fleitz

Posted By on February 2nd, 2024

https://amgreatness.com/2024/02/02/the-cynical-biden-doctrine-middle-east-peace-plan-is-dead-on-arrival/

According to a January 31 Axios article and a February 1 New York Times column by Thomas Friedman, the Biden administration is considering a major new Middle East peace initiative to end the Israel/Hamas War by quickly recognizing a fully independent Palestinian state. Friedman calls this “the Biden Doctrine,” which he describes as “big and bold” and potentially “the biggest strategic realignment in the region since the 1979 Camp David treaty.”

The real purpose of this plan is to counter Biden’s sagging poll numbers and growing criticism of his Middle East policy. Although the reported Biden Doctrine has absolutely no chance of being implemented, it could succeed in further isolating Israel.

According to Friedman, the Biden Doctrine is a Middle East peace plan with three parts: (1) a tough U.S. stand on Iran, including robust military retaliation against Iranian proxies; (2) the U.S. will push for recognition now or very soon of a Palestinian state that is demilitarized and led by a reformed Palestinian authority; and (3) a greatly scaled-up U.S. security alliance with Saudi Arabia with the aim of Saudi-Israel normalization if Israel agrees to part 2.

Part 1, a tough U.S. response to Iran and its proxies, is long overdue, but this is empty rhetoric.  Given how weak U.S. responses have been to attacks by Iranian-backed proxies, only a massive U.S. military response has any chance of stopping their attacks. It is hard to believe that President Biden will approve such a response. Moreover, the fact that Biden still has not ordered retaliatory air strikes in response to the January 28 attack on a U.S. base in Jordan that killed three U.S. servicemembers has further eroded his credibility.

Part 2, to promote an independent, demilitarized Palestinian state under the control of a transformed Palestinian Authority, is a complete fantasy. The real purpose of this idea is to salvage Biden’s abysmal Middle East policy and make him look like a peacemaker at home.  Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis will ever agree to this proposal.

Israeli leaders have made it clear that an independent Palestinian state under the two-state solution is off the table because of security threats in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack.

NATIONAL SECURITY AND DEFENSE Comments turned off

Houthi Cruise Missile Came Within Seconds of Hitting USS Gravely “We can’t afford to sit here and play catch indefinitely” Daniel Greenfield

Posted By on February 2nd, 2024

https://www.frontpagemag.com/houthi-cruise-missile-came-within-seconds-of-hitting-uss-gravely/

Instead of ending Houthi capabilities to terrorize the Red Sea, Biden carried out some light air strikes and promised to impose sanctions in 30 days.

This is the result.

A cruise missile launched by the Houthis into the Red Sea on Tuesday night came within a mile of a US destroyer before it was shot down, four US officials told CNN, the closest a Houthi attack has come to a US warship.

In the past, these missiles have been intercepted by US destroyers in the area at a range of eight miles or more, the officials said. But the USS Gravely had to use its Close-In Weapon System (CIWS) for the first time since the US began intercepting the Houthi missiles late last year, which ultimately succeeded in downing the missile, officials said.

The CIWS, an automated machine gun designed for close-range intercepts, is one of the final defensive lines the ship has to shoot down an incoming missile when other layers of defense have failed to intercept it…

Tom Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it was “concerning” that the Houthi missile managed to get so close to a US warship.

“If it’s going at a pretty good clip, one mile translates to not very long in terms of time,” Karako said.

The Houthis acquire much of their weapons technology from Iran, Karako said. Even slower cruise missiles could cover a mile within a matter of seconds, and the decision time for the commanders of warships is compressed because of the narrow waterways in the Red Sea.

This is what acting defensively means, as I wrote earlier.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The ‘Bidenomics Worked’ Sham Kicks Into High Gear For 2024

Posted By on February 2nd, 2024

https://issuesinsights.com/2024/02/02/the-bidenomics-worked-sham-kicks-into-high-gear-for-2024/

Bidenomics boosters in the media and on Wall Street are everywhere to be seen these days, selling the election-year idea that our president’s economic policies have somehow triumphantly raised our economy Phoenix-like from the ashes. Nothing could be further from the truth.

A sampling of headlines going back to last summer show the adulation for Bidenomics among our supposedly objective economic cognoscenti (Latin for “know-it-alls”):

“Bidenomics Is Real Economics,” Time Magazine.

“Bidenomics is working,” New York Magazine.

And our over-the-top favorite: “Bidenomics’ critics are being proven wrong. Happy days are here again,” Fortune Magazine.

We could go on, but why bother? Popular pundits, media mavens and left-leaning economists are all selling you a bill of goods.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Canadian Trucker Convoy All Over the World Diane Bederman

Posted By on February 1st, 2024

https://dianebederman.com/the-canadian-trucker-convoy-all-over-the-world/

The Canadian Trucker Convoy woke people up from their slumber, and now they are on the march

It’s been difficult to be a proud Canadian under the tyranny of Liberal PM Justin Trudeau – the clown and his leftist wing-man Jagmeet Singh – the court jester.

What kind of leader asks if citizens who disagree with political decisions should be tolerated?  Hmmm, so reminiscent of the Nazis. Two years ago a group of freedom-loving Canadians banded together and formed a trucker convoy to Ottawa to protest against the oppression put upon us by our “leaders.” In response, our PM called out the police to go after peaceful protesters in Ottawa and enacted the Emergencies Act rather than speak to the citizens. And if that were not enough, he arranged to have bank accounts of the truckers frozen. Well, the PM has shared his love of China. “There’s a level of admiration I actually have for China. Their basic dictatorship is actually allowing them to turn their economy around on a dime.”

And that Convoy, that Convoy For Freedom, gave hope to other countries suffocating from the strict shut down caused by “Covid.” And they began to fly the Maple Leaf.  A shining symbol of hope and freedom. What a proud moment in time for those of us who believe that government bends the knee to “we the people” and not the other way around.

France waved the Canadian flag.

New Zealand  and Australia waved the  Canadian flag.

“It became a rallying call with so much of the protest movement that we see based on populism and nationalism and that flag can be resonant with them. It can be a social movement tool, so we can see them finding unity.”

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Further Notes On Mann v. Steyn: The Plaintiff Rests Francis Menton

Posted By on February 1st, 2024

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/

The Mann v. Steyn trial in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia is now in the middle of its third week. For more background on the case, see my post from a few days ago here. I have been watching some substantial chunks of the trial on the court’s livestream, although unfortunately several other matters have prevented me from watching the entirety. Today at the lunch break, the plaintiff Michael Mann concluded the presentation of his case. The technical term is that the plaintiff “rested.” So I thought a short update would be timely.

Because I haven’t seen the whole thing, I’ll just cover some aspects that I find interesting.

In my prior post, I devoted some space to Mann’s claim for damages, which appears to be based principally on the theory that he had lost various government research grants as a result of the allegedly defamatory blog posts of Steyn and Simberg. Last week Simberg’s lawyer Victoria Weatherford had cross-examined Mann with an interrogatory answer he had given to a question asking him to substantiate his damages by providing a list of all grants he claimed he had lost for this reason. In his answer, signed under oath, Mann had not listed any grants, and instead had objected on the ground that the whole subject was “irrelevant.” My comment was “How Mann can claim damages from lost grants after giving this answer, I have no idea.”

Well, as tends to be the case, the story proved to be much more complicated than it first appeared. On re-direct examination, Mann’s lawyer came back with a supplemental interrogatory answer that Mann had served up in 2020, which did contain a list of allegedly lost grants. That seemed like a pretty good response.

But then Ms. Weatherford got another turn on what’s called “re-cross,” and she pulled out yet another supplemental answer provided by Mann to the same interrogatory. This one was dated in 2023. In 2023 the parties were finally in the run-up to the actual trial. In the 2023 answer, there was a list of allegedly lost grants that was either the same or very similar to the list from the 2020 answer, except that the amounts of money allegedly lost as to each grant had changed in many or even most cases. (It was difficult to determine exactly everything that had changed, because they never put the two lists of grants and amounts up on the screen simultaneously for the viewers at home to compare.). Some of the changed amounts were small, but some were dramatic. In the most notable case, the “lost” grant had at first been claimed to be associated with over $9 million of lost funding; but in the amended answer the number had been changed to only about $100,000. At least as to any numbers that ever appeared on the publicly-shown screen, that $9 million amount looked to be by itself far and away the majority of the claimed lost funding.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Tracey Jacobson Abandoned Our Afghan Allies. Now She’s Getting a Promotion. The woman who failed to rescue U.S. friends from the Taliban is Biden’s nominee for ambassador to Iraq. By Eli Lake

Posted By on February 1st, 2024

https://www.thefp.com/p/tracey-jacobson-afghan-allies-iraq-ambassador?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

When America was retreating from its 20-year-war in Afghanistan in August 2021, Omar was one of the Afghan allies President Joe Biden promised to rescue. He had performed a perilous task for the U.S. military: identifying and neutralizing roadside mines embedded by the Taliban insurgency. 

Omar was supposed to receive a special immigrant visa, or SIV, which would have been his ticket to a new life in the U.S. now that his old life was in grave danger from the Taliban. 

He never got that SIV. Instead, after being stopped at a checkpoint last February, Taliban thugs dragged him from his home two days later and beat him to a pulp for helping the United States. His family found his unconscious body lying limp on the street. After four surgeries, Omar succumbed to his wounds and died that same month. (The Free Press is withholding Omar’s last name to protect his family) 

Nearly two years after Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, there are 150,000 Afghans like Omar who put their lives at risk to work with the U.S. government, but are still waiting for their SIVs. Though the SIV process was supposed to provide an escape route for our Afghan allies, that process was “chaos incarnate,” said Tom Kasza, the executive director of the 1208 Foundation, which helps former Afghan allies obtain their visas.

And yet the woman in charge of the SIV Taskforce during the fiasco is getting a promotion. Last week, the White House nominated Tracey Jacobson, 59, to be the next U.S. ambassador to Iraq. The last time Biden talked publicly about Jacobson was on August 14, 2021, the day before Kabul fell to the Taliban. The president said he was putting Jacobson “in charge of a whole-of-government effort to process, transport, and relocate Afghan Special Immigrant Visa applicants and other Afghan allies.” 

America’s ambassador to Iraq is a crucial appointment now that the U.S. is engaged in a regional war with Iran and its proxies. Iran’s militias in Iraq, which draw their salaries from the government budget in Baghdad, have stepped up their attacks since Hamas’s October 7 massacre in Israel. One of those militias, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, claimed credit Sunday for a drone attack on a U.S. base in Jordan that killed three service members and wounded at least 34 more.